Kia and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are telling owners of 2020–2024 Kia Telluride SUVs to park them outside after a previous seat repair was found to still leave a fire risk. The new recall, 26V430, covers 462,869 vehicles and follows an earlier recall, 24V407, that was supposed to fix the problem.
The warning matters now because the fire risk can exist even when the SUV is parked and turned off. If the cover around the front power seat slide switch is impacted, dislodged, or misaligned, or if the switch is damaged in those ways, the motor can keep running, overheat and increase the chance of a fire.
The affected vehicles were built between January 9, 2019, and May 29, 2024. Any Telluride produced on May 30, 2024, and later is not included because it was built with a reinforced power seat switch mechanism. Owners of the recalled SUVs are expected to get notice in the mail between August 13 and 19, and the parts and labor for the repair will be free.
The friction point is that Kia already tried to solve the danger. Under 24V407, the company installed a reinforcing bracket to keep the cover from interfering with the switch and replaced the seat slide knob with an improved version, but that remedy was judged inadequate. The new fix under 26V430 is an electronic fuse assembly, although the Part 573 report does not say where that part will be installed, and the repair procedure is not included in the documents on NHTSA's website.
For owners, the practical advice is blunt: keep the Kia Telluride outside until the new repair is done. The unanswered detail is not whether the risk exists — it does — but how quickly Kia can move 462,869 SUVs through a remedy that has already failed once.
